The evening events went as follows. Before the event started, I think I got "lost" like six different times. -_- If I had thought I knew how to get around UCF, I was sadly mistaken. I ended up having to stop along the way, a few times, just to find the place where the event was taking place. I of-course, played it cool and just rolled with it. As my mother would say, "the driver never gets lost, they simply take new routes to get to their destinations." And when I found my destination, I smiled like I had won the biggest prize. I looked at the time and saw we were a good hour and a half early, and the place was
off. There is nothing that could have made the night funnier than seeing my friend covered in bits of little fur balls from the white blanket. He didn't find the humor by I had a good laugh after finding some on me as well.
When we finally made it back to the event, we had a nice time looking through various telescopes. We saw Venus, Mars, the moon, and a smudge of a galaxy. I had such an amazing night, that I was okay with finding out the "star" I had been looking at for the longest of time was actually not a star but a planet, Venus. The memories and the laughs I shared that night was worth finding out my start was a planet. Life is made up of moments. They come and go, and it is up to us to seize them. Yes I got lost, several times, and yes the blanket gave my friend white spots, but we had our laughs and we were able to create a memory of our time with "Knights Under the Stars". That adventure will live on in our memories. In life it is easy to get sucked into a pattern of constant work and no play, but I have learned to make room for a smile, a laugh, and an adventure for it is those moments that I create with friends and family that I will cherish the most. Best of Wishes, JM
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While I was in high school, although I thought my life was quite "exciting", it was never nearly as eventful as some of my college days have been. Today was supposed to be a monotonous day for me. I had planned on going to my morning Anthropology course, pick up my interlibrary loan (ILLiad) textbook, drop off the iPad I had checked out from the library and then head out to take my car to the mechanic. However, in life rarely do things go as planned. I have learned that lesson many times. I was able to drive the one hour commute to UCF, find a good parking spot within 10 minutes of arriving to the parking garage (a new personal record), pick up and drop off my library items, and attend my anthropology class. Everything was going according to plan. My day was going quite wonderfully. Like one of my favorite childhood characters would say . . . I left the UCF parking garage and headed out to Downtown Orlando, towards my mechanic's Auto Body Repair Shop. While in the SR 408 (East-West Expressway), I was jamming to my favorite songs when it began to rain. It appeared that Florida was having another "mood swing". The weather transforming from happy go lucky sunshine to grumpy grey rain clouds. As one song changed into another, a rather unnerving thing happened. My old man (car) began to shake. Then a Magic Kingdom firework explosion was heard. What I did not know was that my old man had just broken a hip. I pulled over, called the insurance company, and then finally checked the damage done. There is only one way to describe what I saw. It appeared that my car's tire had been skinned off. This may be a weird visual, but it reminded me of the way some Native Indian tribes used to skin the scalp off of their enemies. It was a sad thing to see happen to my old man. My day was officially not going according to the plan . . . I could have gotten mad, started screaming and yelling out of frustration. I could have become a pessimistic and just look at all the wrong things that were happening but I choose differently. I choose to stay calm, wait until help arrived (one hour and 30 minutes of waiting but it could have been a longer wait, with the weather not cooperating). I choose to sit back, listen to some tunes, call my family and best friend to let them know how everything was going, and to even draw. Even when the cop pulled over to check if everything was alright, I remained calm (it was my first time having a police officer pull over). I was not stressed. I was happy to not have gotten in a car crash (even though it was pouring at the time of the incident). I was ready to get some lunch and get my old man to the doctor's. Life is unpredictable. Things rarely go as planned and it is in those moments where one either "rolls with it" or gets stuck on the fact that things aren't going the way one would have preferred. As someone that substitute teaches as a part time job, I can not afford to loose my cool when things go unplanned. There are days when I pick up a lesson plan and everything seems to go smoothly until a student gets hurt, or the class takes longer on a section then what was planned. Things don't always go by the book and that is a life lesson we all learn at one point in our lives. Have a wonderful week everyone!
- JM |