Friday, poker night was good. I won $20! Dan was actually the first to lose - weird, because he's usually the winner! He went all-in and lost on a bad beat.
Saturday, Dan took me to lunch, then we hit up the brewery for free samples. Sarah P called me and we talked for a looong time. She's pretty determined to see me again before I move. I told her to not worry too much, it's not like we see each other more than once a year anyway - so me being in China for a year isn't exactly going to damper our friendship.
My friend Amanda came up from Denver last night. We watched the Brak Show and some movies, yada yada yada, she left this morning around 11:00. I totally got booty-called all the way from Denver! Lovely.
I've been hanging out with Dan a lot lately - man, I'm really gonna miss him when I move to China! Seriously, about every other day, we've been doing stuff. We have way more in common than I ever knew. The more we hang out, the more stuff we have in common - weird stuff, too, like we both really want to take a cross-country motorcycle trip, and we both dislike the same people in our "group of friends" ... I guess things just feel a little different when you're moving across the world. Don't get me wrong - I still really, really want to move! I'm just only now appreciating how good of a friend Dan's become, now that I'm about to, potentially, never live in the same city as him again.
I miss Chad and John, too, but I hardly ever get to see those two - so it's not like moving across the world really makes a big impact on how much we get to hang out. I last saw Chad at Halloween, I last saw John in March 2006. Ah well, at least we can all keep in touch electronically! (Assuming the great firewall of China doesn't mess up my communication channels too badly.)
Man, ideally, I would come home from China, get a high-paying job right here in Fort Collins, Chad would move to town and Dan would still live here, Sarah P. would propose to me, and my apartment would be up for rent again right as I tried to move back. That sounds nice - but I'd probably get bored with my life too quickly and want to move across the world again. I've also thought about joining the Peace Corps right after China - they have technology-instructor positions all over the world. I need to look into that!
I've pretty much decided I don't want to come home to grad school - right now, more schooling sounds like the LAST thing I want to do. Maybe in 5 years I'll be ready to get back into academia... but the reason people do that is because they forget about the LONG hours of homework, the stress, the expectations, the hoops you must jump through, the bullshit core-curricula classes, etc. etc. etc. Our secondary education system is a big fucking joke.
Ah well, still too early to worry about what I'm doing when I get back from China! Step one is going to be to actually get myself TO China! After that, I can worry about what to do with myself.
I don't understand myself sometimes. After I see Sarah P. for a few days in a row, I get a little annoyed with her. But when I don't see her for a month, I yearn for her. I'm not being sarcastic, it's a real yearning! I wonder what a psychiatrist would say about me?? Probably "he's a danger to himself and others..." That's what they say in all the movies about everybody.
I get to see Chad in less than two weeks! Fuuuuck yeah.