Millstone or Milestone?

College students get asked a lot of the same questions over and over. What's your major? What do you want to do with that? (In my case, Are you going to teach?) We endure it with as much good humor as we can. After all, we ask the same things of ourselves and each other.

The most recent question I've been getting has been "How do you feel about graduation? Scared? Excited?" The first ten times or so someone asked me that, I had to stop and think because I honestly didn't know. I don't know what to feel. It was pretty much the same when I graduated high school: I wasn't particularly excited or depressed, it was just something that was happening. But this time I'm actually leaving behind friends I have grown to love and, probably the most bizarre thing of all, I'm not coming back to school.

I've been in school since I was 5. (Earlier, if you count preschool.) I'm 21 now, and I know almost nothing outside of school. I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that when August rolls around, I won't be packing up and coming back to Samford. One of my friends and I were talking about this, and we decided that graduation wouldn't really sink in until that time came and went and we're still working at whatever "big girl" jobs we've managed to get. Graduation is aptly named commencement - I will be commencing an entirely new part of life.

Newness and change bring uncertainty. I think it's that uncertainty that causes people to be afraid; I certainly don't care for it. One of my acquaintances asked me yesterday what the next couple weeks - my last couple weeks - looked like for me. I told him I'd basically be doing what I'd been doing, plus some studying. He smiled and offered his interpretation of "what I've been doing": "Living in fear and panic?" I was stunned he would say that, but I guess it's what people expect. I told him, "No. I'm not afraid. There's a lot of uncertainty, yeah, but I'm not afraid." He seemed to ponder that for the brief remaining moments before we parted ways. I hope he remembers it.

When I shared the experience with my friend over dinner, she said after some thought that it was a blessing to not be afraid. It is a blessing, but why should any of us be afraid? We don't know what's coming next, in most cases. We don't know whether it's bad (causing fear) or awesome (causing excitement). I think most of us are just nervous we're going to screw something up. We won't get a job, we'll be crippled by student loans, the economy will plummet again, we won't be able to keep up with bills and rent, and we make all the wrong choices. That would definitely suck, but there's no way to know that's going to happen. Thousands of college grads have gone through this already, and they've made it through somehow. That tells me a couple things: 1) it's not all bad, 2) there will be people who understand and will help, 3) you can always move on from mistakes. I've got a very black and white mentality (either this was done right or wrong), so that last lesson is particularly important for me.

One of the other emotions people ask if I have about commencement is sadness. Again, the whole situation hasn't really sunk in yet; it still feels like I'm going to come back after the summer and see everyone again. However, this is the one emotion that I have enough information to accept. I may not know enough about my future to be afraid, but it's starting to hit home that I'm leaving people behind, people I'll probably see again, but never again like when I was at school. My school friends will either stay in Birmingham or go back to their various states, wherever they live, and I'll probably only see them through Skype, which doesn't even come close to cutting it for me. (Better than nothing, though.) My dojo friends I'll definitely see again, because there'll always be some workshop or seminar to go to; it'll just be weird to know that I'm not leaving them for just a summer.

If I weren't so wary of taking steps in the dark, I'd probably be really excited about graduation/commencement. Unformed possibilities, the potential to do great things for God and for others, plus the sheer amount of new opportunities... Those are all things to be excited about, and when I'm calm, I am a little excited (paradox?). But then that whole I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-or-where-I'm-walking thing comes up again.

To answer the question of how I feel about graduation, I feel anticipatory, sad that I'm leaving dear friends behind, somewhat excited about the newness of what's coming, and, above all, unafraid.

USA TaiKai 2012

I apologize for the late post. Usually I write these during my morning work shift at the education library, but I actually had to do work, and there wasn't any time elsewhere in the day. I should be back on schedule next week.

This past weekend was the USA TaiKai and Kunoichi Kai in Atlanta. (For you normal folks, it was a gathering of Bujinkan practitioners for a 2.5 day seminar, where instructors taught and we practiced what we saw. The Kunoichi Kai was one day when the women could separate from the men and work on things that are more or less unique to our gender; "kunoichi" is the term for a female ninja.) So, since that's probably the most exciting thing that happened last week, that's what this post is about! Huzzah.

Friday
     The drive over was relatively uneventful. No wrecks, not too much traffic. Though we did time travel! Jumped ahead a full hour when we crossed the Georgia state line. ;) One of my friends had already checked into the hotel, so I just picked up my room key when we got there and set my stuff down before moseying down to the conference room (ballroom?) we were using for the seminar.
     Things got started a little late, and therefore went a little late, which wasn't too surprising honestly. Things rarely start on time at seminars, in my experience. But it felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself by the time we finished, and my friend felt the same way. I'm sure some people were going out to dinner to socialize and whatnot, but there was no way we were waiting. So we changed clothes and went to the Waffle House right next door. Talked about random stuff and just generally enjoyed ourselves. :)

Saturday
     We got up about 3 hours before training was supposed to start (2.5 hours before they would let us in the main room) and ate an early breakfast in the hotel, then went across the street to take some photos. (At least photography is homework I don't hate bringing out of town with me!) I got one silhouette of her looking out the window, because it looked cool, and a couple panning shots. Hopefully those turn out alright.
     Saturdays usually have the biggest turnout at any seminar, and this one was no different. We had about 80 people show up - a really good turnout. After morning announcements, the women left for the Kunoichi Kai in the room across the hall, and the men stayed in the main room. We had the option of switching from one side to the other as we chose, but only if we train and don't just watch (especially for the men coming over to the women's side). I poked my head in over at the men's side once, but stayed over with the women the rest of the day, since I rarely get a chance to work with so many people close to my size and build and learn from female instructors. It was a really awesome opportunity, and we had excellent instructors. It was primarily centered on defending yourself and others, so it was very practical, too.
     Lunch was provided for us by the hotel. Only interesting thing there was that my friend forced me to go mingle with people I don't know because she took the last spot at a table, meaning I had to go find a spot somewhere else. I can still see her knowing, mischievous smile, that punk. (Joking aside, I did get to know some people I'd never met before.)
     The afternoon session was about the same as the morning, so I'll just fast forward to dinner. (Why does everything fun seem to revolve around food?) We all went out to Taki Steakhouse, a Japanese restaurant with hibachi grill. We had over 80 people show up for dinner, which was more than they'd anticipated. So the big room where everyone was supposed to sit filled up and there were still about 15 of us left, myself and some of my friends included. It took a little more waiting, but eventually they cleared the other hibachi room and we could sit down and order. Pretty much everyone got entrees except me - I ordered sushi. Sushi usually takes significantly longer than the entrees, but that was no problem, because the hibachi chefs always dish out the extras to other people's plates. With my friends on either side of me - one a new acquaintance from lunch - giving me bits of their food, I had PLENTY to eat before my sushi came out. I'm pretty sure a look of "What'll I do??" crossed my face when the sushi came out. Two rolls with 8 pieces each, and I was already almost full. But the sushi was so beautiful!! (I managed to eat one roll. The other went in a to-go box, which I sadly forgot to bring out with me when we had to leave. We mourned for the loss of sushi.)

Sunday
     Sunday is always the toughest day. Everybody's tired, most everyone was out late the night before, and there's still a full day of training that taxes the mind and body. But me and my friend got up early again and went to buy some breakfast food from Publix. Strawberries, cheese and rolls, Naked Juice... It was a fantastic breakfast, made even better by eating it out on the hotel patio. Definitely one of the highlights of my weekend. :)
     The day was truly brain frying, but worth it. I kept notes during the seminar, and a couple things kept coming up that I'll get to explore on my own in greater detail. A couple things that were shown were truly frustrating, which I've learned to take as a good sign; frustration means you're getting challenged and learning something.
     After training, I said goodbye to my friend I'd stayed with and went with some other friends to an awesome bar with great food. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, the people, the food, and the new beer  I tried (Rogue Dead Guy). Plus, there was a giant table with a kickball team behind us providing entertainment. One guy got very drunk very fast. That was interesting.

All in all, an excellent weekend, and so far it's been a promising week. :) Looking forward to a self-defense workshop and a birthday party this weekend, plus anything else life decides to throw at me this coming week.

Kat in the Hat

I'm so happy it's finally sunny outside. All those clouds were boring! Not to mention they seriously hindered my ability to take pictures outside (everything comes out flat when there's no contrast of light and shadow). It's still ridiculously windy, but that makes it kind of fun. :) So praise God for sunshine!!

Vulcan
Speaking of photography, I went up to the Vulcan statue for the first time this weekend and took pictures. :) It was incredibly windy, especially up on the observation deck. I almost blew away!! It was still really overcast that day, but the view was incredible and I got some good shots (hopefully). I just finished that roll of film, so I'll know the results this week or next.

Cross Fit
So, one of my friends recently got his instructor certification for Cross Fit. He asked the dojo in general (he's also my sensei) if anyone would be willing to start doing Cross Fit so he could get some practice as an instructor. For those of you who don't know, Cross Fit is a workout program that's designed to build muscle movements you need for life, and the workouts are always changing so you never get bored (and your muscles don't stall in growth). I'd done a few workouts for funsies with him and one or two others, and none of those had been too terribly taxing. So I said, "Sure, that sounds like fun."

First two official workouts included running laps outside. I have a love-hate relationship with running. First time wasn't so bad, because I ran at my usual cross-country, I've-got-to-keep-this-up-for-3-miles pace, which is basically a brisk jog. Turns out you're supposed to run as fast as you can for as long as you can. So I did that the second time, and barely made it halfway through the first lap before I started lagging. By the third lap, when I heard the "motivating" claps of my "friend," I wasn't sure who to hate: him for telling me to pick it up or me for agreeing to do this.

I'm not sure I would call it "fun" anymore, but I don't actually hate it either - if I did, I'd just stop. It's a good challenge, and I want to see how quickly I improve. (I do wish the workouts weren't so similar to my strength training class workouts, though.)

School
After heartily avoiding it for several weeks (since almost the beginning of the semester, in fact), I finally started working on my oral review study guide. Yes, I know, I'm a procrastinator. But at least I didn't wait until the week before! I've still got... two weeks, I think? >_> The point is... I started. And it was actually kind of fun to go relearn some of this stuff! Guess that means I chose the right major. ;) And, since I've written papers on some of the study guide topics before, it was relatively simple to answer a couple of the questions; just had to re-read the papers. They're pretty good, actually. I can see where they need improvement, but I'm proud of the work I did on those.

Part of my homework for my Human Sexuality class was to watch about an hour of MTV. I was not at all pleased with that part of the assignment - I despise MTV. And after watching an hour of "Fantasy Factory," I feel completely justified in my prejudice. Nobody should be watching this mind-numbing crap. How is it entertaining to watch two guys in fat suits race around a dirt bike course they built indoors for no good reason?? The show seems to be built around the antics of these few workers - why do they even have such a big warehouse/"factory"? - because I couldn't discern any purpose at all. Waste of time.

Your Turn!
I was talking to one of my friends at dinner the other night, and we got on the topic of nicknames. We're both named Kaitlin (hers is spelled with a C), but she goes by Caity and I, for the longest time, refused to let anyone shorten my name. That's gradually become less of an issue for me, though there are a couple nicknames that I refuse to acknowledge or allow.

I just thought it was interesting how we had different attitudes about our full names and our nicknames, and thought about the stories behind some of our nicknames. I go by "Dora" with some of my friends; I got that one in high school Spanish, because I was pretty good at Spanish and looked a little like Dora the Explorer. "Kat," the nickname in this post's title, is so far only used by one person; he chose that when I shut him down on another nickname.

How do you feel about having a nickname? What's the weirdest, funniest, or most interesting nickname you've had, and why was it given to you?

Looking forward to reading your responses! Have a great week.

Is This the Real Life?

I pretty much exhausted my clever Monday-themed titles with last week's post. (Which was taken from the song "Monday, Monday" by the Mamas and the Papas. Good song.) If any of you have other clever ideas, go ahead and share them. Even if I don't use them for a post title, it'd bring a smile to face, and who doesn't like to make other people smile? ;)

Samford hosted its first ever TEDx event Friday. Some of my best friends are on the team that put it all together, so I went out and supported them Friday morning. This TED stuff is pretty interesting, actually. The notion behind it is a little nebulous, but it's basically opening people's eyes to how they're connected on so many more levels than they normally assume. (The "x" in "TEDx" basically means that it's an independent event that's not hosted by TED.) Some of the talks for the morning session were how our infant selves connect us (since we're all basically the same in our first year of life), how the news connects us (particularly pointing out social media interaction), and how vulnerability connects us. The morning session was great and gave me ideas that [in content] were completely unrelated to what I was hearing, but I think that was kind of the point. Hear other people's ideas, see connections you hadn't before, and then start making some connections and ideas of your own. I'm excited to see when they'll have their next event.

They had an afternoon session for TEDx, but I wasn't able to go to that because I was going home with some of my friends for the first time ever! I was pretty excited to see their house, chill with their family, and enjoy their mom's home cooking (I've had samples of it before when they've come back from a weekend at home). It was a great weekend with a lot of resting. Two of the five of us had homework to do, so they weren't as engaged, but the rest of us played cards, watched movies, read books... Chill stuff. :)

I actually watched 3 movies this weekend. The Matrix on Friday night, because I was in charge of choosing a movie and I found out 4 of the people in the house hadn't seen it before. That was fun, hearing them voice confused questions and saying, "I'd take the blue pill" or "I'd take the red pill." (Someone really did say the blue pill; made me sad. Why would you ignore the search for truth?) And we watched Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi on Saturday so I could start catching up; my suitemates and I are watching all the movies in order of release, and they got ahead of me big time. I watched Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace on the ride back to school Sunday and I still have Episode II to watch before I'm caught up!! Thankfully, one of the girls has some tests this week, so it'll be a while before we can all sit down for the final movie. Buys me some time.

Well, those are all the highlights. Not much of interest going on, haha. I've got to start studying for my oral review ASAP, which means things will get even less exciting during the week, though the next few weekends still have interesting things planned. We'll see.

Peace out.

Oh, before you go, check out this video one of my friends showed me over the weekend!