Genericly Personal

nothing better than receiving a generic email such as this one from HotDate920:

Let me explain myself to you! I am 5' 8" with dark hair and Dark eyes. I also spend alot of time with friends and family, Oh yeah, I work out at the gym 4-5 days a week. I am a beach bunny who needs a friend who wants to go skydiving soon! How about you? LOL Anyways, I just moved to Atlanta, GA and I am 31 and work in health care. cant wait to hear from you.

ok, several things worth noting:

dark eyes? like evil eyes?
a beach bunny? isn't that a female term? and where in atlanta is he beach bunnying?
what kind of health care? do you clean the toilets in the hospital room b/c that working in health care.

however, maybe i should email him back and say we can meet if he takes me skydiving!

i'm fairly certain he just wrote this, cut and pasted it into six dozen emails to various women hoping one would bite.

seriously thinking about the skydiving offer though....

this is too good not to post immediately:

this is JoJo30549, who says I am a laid back kinda go with the flow kind of guy. I have never been married although I sometimes think that I let the perfect one get away (awesome, you are still hung up on some girl). I am also a workaholic (which means you will have no time for a girlfriend or a life) and spend the majority of my time either at work or talking about work (hope it's an interesting job). With a schedule like I have it makes it almost impossible to meet women. It never used to be a problem when I was younger (b/c i prefer to meet women when i'm drunk) but I guess when you give up the clubbing that's what you get (so he misses the random hookup girls from the club?). I would just like to meet someone that enjoys the same things that I do (doesn't everyone JoJo) and someone I can talk to about anything (especially work). And of course there has to be a physical attraction (b/c he's not going to date an ugly girl).

ok, there are so many problems with this profile, if you can't spot them, then there is a reason you are still single. yes, jojo, i want to go out with you and you baggage that you haven't checked yet and hear you talk about work and pray that you find me attractive.

pu-lease!

Matchmaker make me a match

Disclaimer: i am not going to get too personal on here, i'm not going to post successes, if you want to know about that, you can ask me personally. i am going to start with my thoughts on this concept.

Match.com is personal want ads without using silly abbreviations like SWF looking for SWM etc.

i wasn't on there officially and i get this message from sipnpassok, this is a few snippets from his profile:
i like this, I try to be truthful at all costs, because I have learned that it is always better than telling a lie just to spare someone feelings. When it's all said and done, that person will be hurt more from the lie than the truth. i like his profile, but he's really not my type. but see that's the problem, i just dismissed him b/c of a stupid profile and his picture. but, it was the first hit, i have to keep looking.

then, i get this message from sdhrun16:
So, question showing interest. If you could go anywhere and do anything without any consequences... What would it be? 5-paragraph essay is acceptable. i had a flashback to the GRE and panicked and didn't respond. then his profile said he likes someone who doesn't get stressed out too much, which at this point in my life, he would run from me. next....

Jim in Columbia, SC started my day next. put a big X on that one, columbia? really? desperate?

goodgui824 winked at me a couple of days ago, then im-ed me this morning, i didn't respond, he asked if i was there. i haven't responded yet you gui so leave it. who spells guy gui anyway? match.com has im. it's too much!

and winking is lame, if a guy has to wink and then expect me to email him, automatic X. grow a set and send me an email first.

like i said, no success stories will be posted, however, i am having fun doing this.

more later....

Serendipitous Moments

For the record I spelled serendipitous right the first time.

Thursday, I went to Perimeter College, where in just over 1 week I will finally be starting the process of going back to school!!! I had to go over there to take care of some incompetence b/c I swear the people there don't know their heads from their asses. Case in point, I was filling out the appropriate financial aid forms that they never told me I needed and the "adviser" finds an error. Oh yeah, they dropped me from the two classes that I registered and paid for over a month ago. With no notice! There was no "by the way, you aren't signed up anymore" nothing! THEY NEVER EVEN NOTIFIED ME! How incompetent is that??? And to top if off, NO ONE had ever seen the error message before. Seriously? So I tried to remain calm with the financial aid woman and practically stomped down to the "advising" office to find out WTF!

I'm given the new "adviser" who doesn't know the system at all, and after many anticipated minutes of waiting for him to finally print out the piece of paper that told me nothing, he informs me that the classes I had been signed up for would NOT help me get into PT school. Needless to say, I can call everyone who previously "helped" me INCOMPETENT. Idiots! I can't tell you how many times I had to explain I was taking science classes to go to Physical Therapy School and no one thought to process this apparently.

Here's the serendipitous part, b/c every cloud has a silver lining, the "adviser" sends me down to the Head of the Science Department. She tells me that he is right and that those classes would be worthless. So, she proceeds to sign me up for Pre-calculus (I tried and clearly failed at avoiding this one) and an advanced Biology. All of that said, basically, I really feel like this just shows how much more in control God is than me! I mean, to be randomly dropped from wrong classes and then put on the right track. It was a pain in the butt, but totally worth it. What if I had paid out of state tuition and busted my ass for 2 classes that wouldn't even count or transfer?? Not cool. But God stepped in and gave me my serendipitous moment. I love those!

June 8th, I will be walking in to Biology with a Lab and June 9th walking into Pre-Calculus and starting my journey of being a Doctorate of Physical Therapy. Did you read that right? B/c it said DOCTORATE OF PHYSICAL THERAPY. Who knew I would go from a silly bachelor of science (BS - get it?) degree to something in the medical profession? Crazy! Of course I actually have to be accepted to a program, but I'm know this is what God has called me to do, so here I go! I'm actually doing this!

Go Jump Off a Cliff

Let me say that I did not write this, I just feel this way, and it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one.

Being 20-something... They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are going back to school and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.
You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life.

You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but they love someone else.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

In conclusion, with the words of Annie Dillard, "If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."

the silence is deafening

Jackson Pollock

I can’t explain the number of things that go through my head minute-by-minute. It’s really quite loud, so loud that I sometimes have to sit in silence, which ends up not being silent at all, but allows me to hear myself think. Usually it’s trivial things, like what I want to eat, what I want to wear, an argument with myself about whether I should run or sleep, put up laundry or not. The problem with thinking so much is sometimes I do stupid things like sleep over running and leaving my laundry to sit in a pile another day. Sometimes when the thoughts become more serious I begin writing in my journal.

Let me explain my journal. I bought it with lofty goals of it one day being published into a magnificent memoir where people would read it over coffee, talk about it with their friends, rave about it in the NY Times, etc. (one of my life goals is to publish a book, but probably a “See Spot Run” book). But what it became is the place where I cry out to God, where I make life decisions, where I list goals and lament pain. So in reality it’s just a mess, such a mess I am often embarrassed by what I’ve written and find it far from being worth a book review. Au contraire, it should be burned once I’ve dotted the last period on the last page. I don’t want anyone to read it, such an action may lead me to be committed to a mental institution. But it’s become a necessary part of my life to write down what I’m thinking, like I said, there were big decisions made on those pages.

But I digress, on to the point of this entry, I’ve just been commissioned to teach a young boy of 12 how to write, to get thoughts out of his head onto paper. And while I want to help him, I have to wonder am I equipped for such an important task? I am being asked to shape this kid’s writing future! How do I teach someone how to write his thoughts coherently when I often write serious gibberish? I wasn’t forced into this commission by any means; it’s an excellent challenge for me, much more so than making coffee. I just hope he learns something and will thank me in the opening lines of his own memoir that will undoubtedly be much more spectacular than my first attempt.