Tuesday, July 22, 2008

What Do You Put Up, Brah?

Right now I’m racing against the MS Word Auto-Updater, which is currently downloading an update for my MS Office. The challenge is whether I can complete this literary vomiting I call a blog before it finishes downloading and installing — which I’m pretty confident will delete everything I’m writing right now. Here’s hoping.

-Crazy Kids-
I pulled in to my folks’ house with my siblings in tow last night around 2:30am or so, having completed another fun-filled year of camping at Timberwolf Lake in Lake City, Michigan. The week was awesome, as always, but it wasn’t the mountain biking, hiking, swimming, running, tomfoolery, or my lack of clothing that made the week awesome; it was the people I was there with. This will be somewhere between my third and fifth year taking the 50-ish middleschoolers I used to work with at UALC up to TWL, and it was kind of sad to “graduate” some of the students I’d been going with for several years. It’s crazy for me to see people start out in sixth grade — pretty doe-eyed and still very child-like — then transform in just a couple short years from that to the high-school-ready ninth graders who are pretty capable of making their own decisions and choices about everything from friends and music, to religion and money. At first, part of me finds it fascinating that people change so rapidly at that age, but then as I think more about things, I wonder if people are always changing that rapidly, and maybe they just show it less on the outside. If you were to compare the Dustin of 2005 with the Dustin of 2008, we’d probably look relatively similar on the outside, but there are eons of change and life experience that have taken place in that short amount of time. I keep waiting for (dreading?) the day or the year that I’m gonna wake up and feel like I’m not a kid anymore, that I finally hit “grown up” mode or whatever, but really, after almost a quarter-century on this planet, I just don’t think it’s going to happen to me like it happens to other people. And what’s more, I think change is kind of the key to that. What makes kids kids is that they’re constantly changing, learning, adapting, micro-evolving to a system that’s totally in flux from physical and emotional changes, to social and psychological ones. I think the only people who become “grown ups” in life are the ones who start to resist or reject that change, in favor of a safer, more familiar sedentary lifestyle where they’re more comfortable with themselves and their surroundings. I know I’m just talking out my ass at this point, but I hope I never get to that stage where I’d rather chose ease and latency over change and challenge. I’m not afraid of getting older, but I don’t think that “older” should be synonymous with outdated. I know my time is limited until facebook becomes “so five years ago” and videochatting cell phones are “totally last season,” but maybe if I embrace the same kind of change my middleschool brethren have thrust upon them, I can get older while staying young. At the very least, maybe I can get a date to prom out of all this. Kidding.

-Anticipation is a B****-
I have been waiting to see The Dark Knight since the credits started to roll on Batman Begins, and in T-minus two hours, that wait will finally be over. I have gone to great lengths to prep for this movie without setting my expectation too high, but really, I trust this team of actors/directors too much to really think it’s going to be anything except awesome. Expect my full, spoiler-free thoughts on the film in the next day or two.

-Butterflies Got Nothin’ on Me-
I have barely had a free second to call my own on my vacation, but really, that’s how I prefer it — I’m not here to rest, I’m here to catch up with friends, family and loved ones the only way I know how: by auctioning every available minute of my time to the highest bidder. I know that makes you want to call me a social whore (and you wouldn’t be wrong), but really, I don’t do it to try and seem faux-popular or anything, I just love the people in my life, and want to squeeze as much love into a short amount of time as possible (and no, that’s not slang for anything). If somehow you got neglected on this trip, then rest assured you’ll be top of my list next time I come back. Much love. Oh, and thank you all for being the awesomest group of dudes and dudettes this side of the equator.

Ok, pooltime, dinnertime, movie-time, drankin’ time. See you on the flip side.

Cheers,
Dustin

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