Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Another Older

Mornings after marathons are interesting, to say the least. Generally you don't sleep for more than 4 or 5 hours if you're lucky. In a way that's a good thing, seeing as you'll actually be tired enough to sleep the following night, but it often also means that you're tired enough to sleep right now. Your body often demands more sleep, sleep that you need to ward off unless you're planning on not sleeping that night again.
So fatigue is a factor. Then of course there's always the massive crash you're still experiencing from sugar intake. Gumdrops and Vault don't necessarily settle very well when gluttonously inhaled in such massive quantities. When combined together in such quantities, I'm willing to believe it can be coma-inducing as far as its massive crash goes.
Point of the matter is, mornings after are weird (it'd be nice if they made a pill for that one). You're tired, you've crashed, but you can't let yourself sleep, and you feel like a huge loser and bum if you let the crash keep you on the couch all day. Still hasn't gotten me off the couch, maybe sometime soon.
But after a quality marathon, the somewhat surreal attitude of the hazy day after often gets me thinking. I often become nostalgic about the marathon which has just passed, seeing that its beginning and its end ( 9 hours apart) seem to be more like days apart. Honestly, you don't need drugs when you've got that much sugar and caffeine. In this way, I believe that my appreciation of marathons past is strongly built upon my nostalgic morning after as well as upon the actual marathon.
This morning, however, I found myself reflecting not upon the marathon recently past, but rather the year recently past. If you'll take a moment to make a hop and a skip into my archives (or just take my word for it, probably more convenient for you), you'll see that my very first post on this blog was made the day of last summer's second Voyager marathon. Now having completed the second Voyager marathon of this summer, it's shocking to look back on what things were like a year ago.

Hey, everyone does a reflection post, I guess it's just my turn.

Let's start with me. The now old joke is that I used to be an optimistic little freshman (maybe not so little), and I was corrupted by J_Verts' cynicism...Yeah, you remember J_V, that guy that used to post around here, or maybe you don't. It's been a while.
It's true, in one way or another, that I've ceased to be the sunny freshman I was a year ago. Was I really affected by those around me? Probably somewhat, but I'm guessing this was truly my own doing. When it really comes down to it, I'm still a positive person, I've just stopped being a flaming optimist by throwing my synthetic sunlight into everyone's face whether they ask for it or not. Actually, I don't believe that I've become more of a cynic at all, but rather more practical. I used to live in a world where I refuted anything negative, combatting it by lathering my surroundings in my positivity, even when it wasn't necessary. I was essentially coating my entire being in insect repellent to ward off one or two unseen mosquitos.
I've had a sort of development of people skills this year. Whereas freshman me was fairly quiet and not necessarily outgoing, this year I've destroyed any social barriers I may've had before. I talk to anyone I want to, even if I haven't ever before, and at least half the time it turns out pretty well. However, my increased outgoing nature has ironically resulted in revealing many of my bad people skills. These flaws were known to my friends (How I can be unbearably awkward, how my sarcasm and sense of humor are so razor-sharp that if I'm not careful I cut someone every now and again), but friendly acquaintances are another issue. People who I seldom talked to as a freshman, people who knew me as that really nice, kinda quiet guy, I suddenly made an effort to talk to very frequently this year. Nothing terrible happened, but I could tell that several people who thought highly of me last year didn't quite appreciate the somewhat crude me they came to know. Luckily, that was not the case with most.
It is interesting, however, how highly we take into account the opinions of our friendly acquaintances. Of course, favor of friends is first and foremost to a person, but there's a certain amount of importance that we put on being thought highly of by those not so important to us. All in all, I'm happy I've become more outgoing.
Speaking of friends, our friend group has changed dramatically as well. We had a few new additions, which pretty much rocked our foundations, as some people took them in happily and most did not. Even now, we're not completely used to what's happened. In the long run, I think the relationships that flourished and those that didn't have helped strengthened our friendship.

Now I'm going to call this one before I start rambling. Take care.

-OSK

No thanks. Maybe when I'm older...Alright, maybe now.

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