I'm how old?

It scares me to think that in less than one week I will be reaching yet another of lifes supposed mile stones. Yes folks, this little ballerina will be 35. How is it possible that I can actually be that old? I'm supposed to have one foot in the grave and the other on a bannana peel. Well, actually I do feel like that some days, yet on other days I fell like I still have my entire life in front of me. I was supposed to have a child by 35, at least that's what I've kept telling myself all my life. I was also supposed to be living in my very own home with a golden retreiver playing in the back yard. I don't have either, but I'm working on it.

Some days I feel like I put too much pressure on myself to conform to societies plan for my life. Other times I realize that I like what society expects of me. I'm torn and I guess that's one of the reasons why I haven't moved forward with my "plans" yet. I know I'm running out of time, I can hear very clearly that tick tock of my biological clock pounding in my head night after night as I try to sleep. But I'm practical because I know that I want to get through school before I have a baby. I want to know where I'll end up working before I buy a house. I want this and I want that and I want everything to be perfect, but deep down inside I know that there is no "perfect" time for a baby. I know that there is no "perfect" house and no "perfect" job. There is a little voice inside my head telling me to just jump into the water and find out if I can swim because I don't have time for swimming lessons.

I don't remember feeling quite this aggitated about turning 30. I guess I really wasn't. I was newly married to a wonderful man. I had just started my career as a web designer/developer and I was enjoying the fruits of my dotcom life never knowing that it would all come crashing down in a few short years. I had plenty of time to start a family, hell I was working too damn much to think of anything or anyone but my career. I was a working girl in the hot IT industry. How quickly life can throw you a curve ball and you just have to shut your eyes and come out swinging doing all you can to make the best of it.

But I haven't given up, I'm still reaching for the stars and trying to make everything perfect, I'm just doing it in my own time...I hope.

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I went to a fight and a Hockey game broke out

WOW! What a game last night, I actually stayed up to watch game 7 of the Avs vs Wild in it's entirety. Let's just say I didn't get to sleep until 1:00 AM CST.

It's interesting to know that a team filled with a bunch of "has beens" and "Second or Third chancers" can move on in the Stanley Cup Playoff while still keeping well under the leagues salary cap. I'm a major Stars fan and supporter, so it was nice to see one-time Stars goalie, Manny Fernandez, make such a difference in that series. I'd link to the Wild's home page (www.wild.com) but, they are apparently experiencing technical difficulties. D'OH!!

My Stars made it through the first round against Edmonton (boo), and are now ready to face "the mighty ducks of anaheim". Does anyone besides me think that is just the cutest name in the league? Can I get a side of orange sause to go with my duck wings please? nose body jewelry, lip jewelry, wholesale piercing jewelry Go Stars!!!

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Life is good
Things are going really well for Gianni and I right now. School is fantabulous. Everything has been taken care of regarding my car wreck back in February, I'm now the proud owner of a '98 Camry that only has 25k miles on it. Benelli is as rambunctious and fun as ever. Gianni's long hours and hard work are paying off, he recently received a promotion. My work is long but at least I'm getting paid. AND, The STARS are in the playoffs...not much to groan about at the moment. Yes I can sincerely say life is good.

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Study Hall

This past Monday I went back to school for the first time in about 7 years. I'm taking a few of those accelerated courses so I can get this over with a little quicker. I'm in classes Monday and Wednesday night for about 3 hours and then Saturday morning for 4 hours. The first night I quickly realized that things were going to be much different for me this time around. I not only have a full time 40+ hour a week job, I'm also taking 10 hours of classes per week for the next 18 weeks or so. This means homework is on a heavier than usual scale because we still have the same amount of course work to get through but we only have a few weeks in which to do it.

Monday night at about 10:15 while I was "trying" to read 3 chapters of homework and answer 5 pages of vocabulary questions, I realized that this was going to be tough. I not only have a ton of homework to get through I also have a cat to entertain. My books fascinated Benelli. He normally likes to sit on the desk with me while I'm on the computer, but now he had a huge hardbound book he could try to sink his incisors into. Between dodging a swishing tail in my face and peeking through this mass of hair lounging over my books I successfully got half way through the first of 3 chapters of required reading. I thought I was doing really well until I realized that it had taken me about 20 minutes to read 5 or 6 pages. At this rate I'll still be reading these chapters this time next week. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try this with a 2 year old needing my constant attention.

I have the greatest respect for student/parents. I have enough trouble juggling my job, school and house work. I’d probably have to throw my hands up in utter despair if I had a couple of sets of tiny feet running around to throw into the mix as well.

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My Uncle passed along one of those e-mails that everyone will get from 4-5 of the people on their e-mail list. I thought instead of passing it along to "my group" I'd just post it here in it's entirety.
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Wonderful!

Please read! You will be glad you did! An Article from England.

No matter what your views on President Bush's statement of upcoming war, this, from an English journalist, is very interesting. Just a word of background, for those of you who aren't familiar with the UK's Daily Mirror.

This is a notoriously left-wing daily that is normally not supportive of the Colonials across the Atlantic.

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One year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting - * the mass murder of thousands, live on television. As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's Mountain of Skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps.

An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate. Surely there could be consensus: The victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil.

But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance. Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year. There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this country; too loud, too rich, too full of themselves, and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an epidemic. And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach.

America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the US by culture, language and blood. A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedoms, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon? And exactly a year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women and children - not just Americans, but from dozens of countries, were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics. Are we so quick to betray them?

What touched the heart about those who died in the Twin Towers and on the planes, was that we recognized them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son and somebody's daughter, husbands, wives, and children, some unborn.

And these people brought it on themselves? Their nation is to blame for their meticulously planned slaughter?

These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan. The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the world's only superpower can
do what it likes without having to ask permission.

The truth is that America has behaved with enormous restraint since September 11. Remember, remember - Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive.

Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of burning skyscrapers.

Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive.

Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mum.

Remember, remember - And realize that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have.

So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked up without a trial in Camp X-ray? Pass the Kleenex.

So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.

AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking lot. That it didn't is a sign of strength. American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq - that's what a democracy is for. How many in the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11? How many Islamic leaders will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination?

When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom- loving Palestinians were dancing in the street. America watched all of that - and didn't push the button. We should thank the stars that America is the most powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that 9/11 did not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on terrorism." A real war.

The fundamentalist dudes are talking about "opening the gates of hell," if America attacks Iraq. Well, America could have opened the gates of hell like you wouldn't believe.

The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the face of the earth. The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the planned war on Iraq may be misconceived.

But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand - assuming you haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting.

I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be - rich, free, strong, open, optimistic. Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system. America is the best friend this country ever had and we should start remembering that.

Or do you really think the USA is the root of all evil? Tell it to the loved ones of the men and women who leaped to their death from the burning towers.

Tell it to the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a collapsing skyscraper. And tell it to the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for the New York Fire Department.

To our shame, George Bush gets a worse press than Saddam Hussein. Once we were told that Saddam gassed the Kurds, tortured his own people and set up rape-camps in Kuwait. Now we are told he likes Quality Street. Save me the range center, Oh Mighty One!

Remember, remember, September 11 - One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America.

No, do more than remember. Never forget.
Do consider passing this on.

T.F.

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