2009: in anticipation

this year i will not be making a series of hopeful new year's resolutions. they have a tendency to control my actions, preventing me from making good on any of them. instead, i will be making some observations, recording some heartfelt hopes, and laying out some of my fears i suppose. this is a look at how i am currently viewing the year to come.
this year is going to hold some major challenges. the completion of my first college degree, a transition of locations, a major step out on my own, a new start at a new college, and many other daunting tasks that are about to be put to hand.
my time at niacc will close with the spring semester. i never dreamed i would be back here, attempting to graduate. now, i can see it just around the corner. i will not say that i am going to miss this place, but i will have enjoyed my second go around. this semester should hold many exciting challenges in the classroom, on the paper, and with my peers. i am participating in a block schedule on monday, wednesday, and friday; while completely avoiding class on tuesday and thursday. this should prove an interesting social and academic experience for me, and i look forward to conquering it with pinash and style. i will finish strong at niacc, something i am very proud to say and know to be true.
also this spring, there will be other challenges while i stay here. i must make careful preparations for my arrival in the capital city. when i move, i would like to be fully equipped, ready to put together a place i can be proud of and call my own. i will not tolerate being unprepared and living in squalor and confusion as i sort out my living situation.
the move to des moines in may is a daunting challenge. the city will provide the energy to fuel the bounce in my step, and the closeness to the city of refuge will provide meaningfull i suppose. i look forward to short drives down 1-63 to spend afternoons with the people i care for so much.
the city will also hold other opportunities. i look forward to submitting for the register and hopefully signing on in a permanent position. the times will be expanded throughout this year, and should grow to fruition, becoming everything that i dream it will become.
there will be many challenges to overcome in the next year and many faces to miss in the early months. it will be odd to return to pella and not see nick or kelsey, and even stranger to walk into the haunted basement and not see ky running around somewhere. i know they will enjoy their travels, and upon their arrival back stateside in the spring it will be a month full of great reunions.
the summer should hold so much. wanderings on a larger scale. the goal for the summer, if there would be one is to do as much as possible. tour, camp, fish, run, bbq, skate, kiss girls, trace highways, see wonders, and whatever else captivates my imagination. this should be the pinnacle summer of my youth i suppose, unless it already passed during hot sidewalk days outside the bravo hotel. i suppose it has not. i would like to visit the cosmos in the dakota's and turn twenty one under the bright lights of vegas.
i however have gotten ahead of myself. there are trips to be made in the spring. a train ride out to manhattan to see mark, and then a short drive up the mountains to visit wyatt at his new home are almost bonafide events in the calender. hopefully they will come and not pass me by as my bones lay dormant under the iowa winter.
the spring will also hold several other events of notice. trips to des moines, pella, iowa city, cedar falls, the twin cities, and any other number of places should fill the weekends from the birth of the new year until the summer swings into consciousness. there are many faces to keep familiar, and i hope to do all i can to make them stay that way. there will be nights with ricky reliving our hectically assembled past.
the fall will hold several new challenges as well. becoming a junior at drake will be an interesting and exciting transition. i look forward to the hardships as well as the obvious rewards of starting life as a bulldog.
this year should also see the completion and possible publication of my first novel entitled "dharma bum summer," a project i am nearly half completed with currently. this could be quite the process and i hope i have what it takes to finish what i have so carefully started.
i currently have run out of things that should take place in the new year, but i'm sure if they go unlisted here, they will surely happen if the fate's align in their favor.
for the first two weeks of the new year i will be out wandering the midwest. i will probably lack updates during this time, and i apologize for this. good luck with the start of your year, god knows we could all use a little.