All Work...

The last week has been work, work, work. Over the last few weeks, I have worked more than my share of hours. I am tired of working, so this weekend I took a mini vacation. I went to visit my friends in Tyler, TX to help his birthday. We were discussing how different life turned out compared to what we all dreamed it would hold back in high school. We even busted out the senior year yearbook and re-read our bios. It is amazing how life changes and new challenges are thrown at you every day and how on overcomes these challenges.

In a few short weeks I get to go visit another friend from high school on her special day. She is marrying another guy from NMMI. It is going to be quite the little reunion and I am very excited about it. I can't wait to see all of my old friends again and catch up with everyone. It seems as though I have almost lived 2 lives. A life at NMMI and then a life in College. Up until now, these two lives have existed separately. I think it has been that way for everyone though. After NMMI's graduation, everyone was so excited to be done and leave that life style, nobody looked back. Now that we are all done with, or finishing, college we are looking back more. Rethinking how we interact with newer and older friends and trying to find a way to let the 2 lives intersect and coexist. Both phases of my life are very important and have made equally large impressions on how I view and interact with the people around me.

The newest challenge I have is introducing my two lives to each other. For the most part they are two very separate 4 years divided into chunks by a year abroad. Now, going to this wedding, I am going to begin trying to mix the two and see how it works out. I have amazing friends from both parts and I think they would all really like each other so we will see how this experiment works out. The brightest point in all of this, I get to go dress shopping. I am terribly excited about that.

Time to Catch Up!

These past few weeks have been pretty busy. I need to catch up so I will try to make things short and sweet. First off, I finally have a tan. After 3 days at the lake over Labor Day weekend, I am not longer blinding white. I even managed to not seriously burn, which was pretty surprising for the lack of sun I had been exposed to over the last half year. The lake was so wonderful and relaxing. It was great to be able to hang out with all of my friends that came up and spend time practicing my water skiing. One big weekend and the season is over. Oh well, I'm excited for snow skiing next!

The most exciting part about Labor Day was Evi. She is my best friend from my exchange year and she was able to come spend 2 weeks with me. We both flew home for the lake, then flew back on Monday. She had to keep herself preoccupied for a few days while I worked (which she did just fine by sleeping, reading, shopping, and tanning) but then we headed to New Orleans for a weekend. We didn't get there till late Friday night, but we had a blast. Our hotel was in a terrific location, not even a block away from Bourbon Street. We hung out on the street, did a city tour, toured an Estate (we didn't have time for a plantation), and took a steam paddle boat up the Mississippi. I was so happy to get to experience such a fun city with Evi. She said Bourbon St. was a bit much for her, but other than that she loved it. On the way home we also managed to stop at a wonderful outlet mall. We were short on time, but we both managed to find some good deals and great clothes. She had to leave the next day (Monday) but it was a great 2 weeks and I can't wait to see her again!