End Of Days

This is it. The night before my exam. There is no more time to study.

I can’t freak out. I can’t worry. All I can do now is get a good night’s sleep, wear my lucky underwear (doesn’t everyone have a pair?), drink a Red Bull in the morning, and take the exam.

I sometimes see my life as a TV show. Weeks become episodes and school semesters become seasons. Now that I’m not in school, these last few months after school ended have become a season as well. This season was all about the transition from school to the real world.

Tomorrow is the season finale. Everything I have been working for this season comes together in this last episode. How will this season end? How will this shape the season premiere?

Stay tuned!

Football And Mini Pizzas

I hung out with some friends from high school today. We met up at a local restaurant that had a pay-per-view football game on. Not only that, but the restaurant also had happy hour discounts on beer and appetizers. They have really good mini deep dish pizzas. I didn’t get to try their chicken wings, though. I’ll have to go back sometime and get some.

The happy hour discount only applied to people in the bar section of the restaurant, so we waited awhile before getting seats. The bar section ended up being packed full of very loud football fans. I really couldn’t care less who was playing or who was winning; I’m not really into sports at all. I was there to hang out with my friends and eat tasty appetizers. My friends like watching football (which is why we met up there), but I don’t think my friends really cared who was playing either. One of my friends said he was rooting for one team because another friend was rooting for the opposite team. It led to some very funny exchanges when either team scored a touchdown.

I was with my friends in the afternoon during part of my usual study time. I only stayed for a couple hours, because I didn’t want my parents  to know that I wasn’t studying. I tried studying at the restaurant but it didn’t go well, so I gave up. I reviewed my formulas (with 100% accuracy) before I got there though, so the day wasn’t completely wasted.

I know shouldn’t be hanging out with friends only two days before my exam, since I should be focused on studying. On the other hand, relaxing a little and seeing friends helps me keep my sanity. I can’t possibly do well on my exam if I’m tense and freaking out (which might happen anyway).

College Essays

My cousin asked for my help with his college essay tonight. His college applications are due at the end of the week. His essay was pretty creative. He made something seemingly dirty and useless into a metaphor for his family’s struggles. It was an interesting concept, but the metaphor needed strengthening. The metaphor needed clarification, and some examples were difficult to connect with the metaphor. I made some suggestions, but he didn’t use all of them. He wanted to be done with the essay tonight, so he didn’t make as many changes as I think were necessary to make a solid essay.

At least my cousin didn’t ask me to write the essay for him. I helped a different cousin with her college essay a couple of years ago. She asked me for help about an hour before the deadline. Her essay was long and rambling without really saying anything. I ended up asking her a few questions to get a sense of what she wanted to say, and then I wrote a new essay for her in twenty minutes. She ended up using my version of the essay. I’m sure there are more factors in getting into college than just the essay, but she got into the college where she is now!

No Clicking, Just Snapping

Nothing clicked today, but I think something snapped. My fears of never getting a job and wondering if I’m making the right career choice were overpowering again. Everyone else has faith in me, but I still don’t. I couldn’t stay focused on studying, so I ended up sitting in Starbucks drinking tea to try and calm down. It didn’t work.

I went to the gym to unwind. After not working out for almost two weeks, I feel like I’ve lost some muscle and gained fat. I didn’t gain any weight, so it’s hard to tell. Even if I didn’t lose muscle, I still need to bring my normal routine back. The fact that I had pizza for dinner isn’t going to help anything. For the record, pizza was my dad’s idea, not mine.

I really hope the next four days aren’t like today.

No Margin

Today was a typical day of studying. I didn’t study much (okay, at all) during my trip, but I still did about the same on the practice exam problems as I did before I left. I still remembered all of the formulas I need too, which was a pleasant surprise.

The problem is that I’m not getting better. I’ve been getting roughly the same average on the practice problems for at least a month now. My average should be passable, but the actual exam is going to different, no matter how similar it is to the practice exams. I really need to have a higher average while I’m practicing so that I will still pass even if I don’t do as well on the real thing. Right now, I have no margin for error.

I need this final week to be extra productive. I hope something clicks in the next five days.

A Quiet Ending

My last day of my graduation trip was nice. I had a delicious sushi lunch with my friends who I had stayed with all week. Before my friends drove me to the airport, we sat in a Starbucks and drank warm beverages while watching little kids lick the windows. So cute and so disgusting. It was great to have a quiet day with my friends to end my trip.

I’m back home now. Time to return to business as usual. Only six days left until my exam.

One Last Time

I went out with some friends tonight. One last gathering before I leave for home. It was great to see everyone again. It really did feel like old times.

When I was moving away from this city four months ago, I had a similar farewell party. While it was sad that I was leaving, I knew that I would be coming back for graduation. I knew that I would see all my friends again.

That time has come, and now it’s gone. I don’t know when I will see this group of friends again. There is no foreseeable plan to come back. That’s what made this night so important. One last glimpse at my old life before I start the next phase of life.

I leave tomorrow.

Not All Gay

I had coffee with a good friend today. Like me, she just graduated with her masters and is figuring out what she wants to do with her life. We sat in a coffee shop and talked for nearly three hours. Every time I chat with her, we always have things to talk about. There’s never a lull in our conversations, and we almost always talk for hours.

It’s very rare for me to have conversations with people, even close friends, without some silent periods. So when I do meet someone with whom I have that much to say, I wonder if there’s something special going on. If I wasn’t gay, I would say we could have a perfect relationship with no drama and no arguments. If sex wasn’t such a big part in (an ideal) marriage, I would think we could be a great couple.

No one is 100% gay or straight (supposedly). I would say that I’m 99% gay. There have been only a handful of girls (two come to mind) for whom I felt something “more” than friendship. The feeling is like a crush but with no sexual attraction. I can’t explain it very well, but I know that it’s a stronger feeling than when I usually interact with girls.

If people didn’t need sex to be in a lifelong happy relationship, I would still choose a boy in general. That being said, there are a couple girls who I would also seriously consider.

I used to be confused by these feelings. Being a little older and a little wiser now, I realize that you can’t control what you feel. If a straight guy feels a certain affinity toward a boy, it doesn’t mean he’s gay, much like a gay guy like me who occasionally feels an affinity toward a girl doesn’t mean he’s straight.

Sexual identity is very personal. It took a very long time for me to call myself gay, even in my head. I had to be honest with myself and admit that identifying as gay is more truthful than identifying as anything else. The feelings I have toward boys is much stronger than the feelings I have toward girls. And even with girls for whom I have stronger feelings, the attraction is not sexual in nature, which I can’t always say for boys.

Thanksgiving Graduation

Graduation was fun. The ceremony was pretty short; it only took about an hour. The pictures my friends took of the ceremony are not very good, but it’s completely the fault of the distance from the stage and the lighting of the auditorium. I guess my camera takes some blame as well, since I chose a smaller, cuter camera over a more powerful camera that could take professional pictures by having much more zoom and stronger flash. I did get some good pictures of me with my friends after the ceremony, so it’s not a big deal. I also had the obligatory professional graduation photos taken so that my parents can buy them and feel less guilty for not coming to my graduation.

Today is also (American) Thanksgiving. It’s just another day in Canada (I’m pretty sure schools in the US don’t hold graduation ceremonies on Thanksgiving), so it’s hard to find a good turkey dinner. Instead, my friends and I went to Swiss Chalet for dinner. For the last three years (this year makes four), I have gone to Swiss Chalet on American Thanksgiving. During the holidays, they offer a “Festive Special,” which upgrades the usual “Quarter Chicken Dinner” with stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a small box of chocolate truffles. Even though I didn’t get turkey, chicken is almost the same, and the stuffing is my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal anyway.

Megapixels Aren’t Enough

I walked around more of the city today (different parts from where I walked a couple days ago) to take pictures, but I didn’t like the majority of pictures that I took. I’m not sure if it’s me or my new camera, but many of the pictures just don’t seem sharp enough. The pictures usually look fine on the LCD screen on the camera, but viewing the full size on my computer is sometimes blurry, or at least not as crisp as it “should” look.

Not that I really know what the pictures “should” look like up close. I’ve never had a camera will so many megapixels before, so I don’t really know what I should be expecting. But at 12.1 megapixels, I should be able to make a very large print and not see much blurriness. Even if the picture looks good as a 4×6 or even 8×10 print, I still feel like my picture quality should be high enough to give me the option of printing larger.

I did like the pictures I took a couple days ago though. On that day, I mostly took pictures of buildings and other still objects. The difference today was that I was taking pictures of animals (which move a lot, often very quickly). I guess I’m just not good at taking pictures of objects that move.

So maybe it’s not my camera that is causing my pictures to be blurry. Maybe it’s my poor picture taking skills. All those megapixels aren’t enough to make up for my lack of skill.

My graduation is tomorrow, so I hope my friends can take better pictures with my camera than I can. I’m sure my family would be pretty upset if I didn’t have really nice pictures to show them.