The Haps

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog; it's been a while since my latest post, and I suppose it might be because I've been relatively busy. Since my last post I've spent a week readjusting to LA life; driving a car, using a cell phone all of the time, getting used to the time zone difference, and preparing to be in a full-time school schedule again. I've been hiking in the hills, which I missed so much. I've been cycling with my friends and family, which is another things I missed a lot as well. Watching Lakers games has been a consistent plan for me, since being back; nothing makes you appreciate your local home-team like being away for a couple of months, while things are really heating up for the team!

Yesterday was my first day of class and my first full day back in Santa Barbara; I think I really missed the atmosphere in Santa Barbara and definitely at school. It blows my mind that I have less than four months until I graduate. I've been running, strong, year-round for the last couple of years and they seem to have flown by so quickly. I'll be a college graduate before I know it. I have been having reoccurring and simultaneous  feelings of joy, appreciation, craving and hunger; I'm so happy to be doing what I'm doing, I really appreciate and feel lucky for the eye-opening experiences which I was just able to experience, I'm craving new adventure, and I'm hungry for the bright future which lies ahead of me. Though, these feelings are both reflecting back on the past and projecting ahead to the future I am still quite awake and alive in the present moment. These reflections and projections are part of my present when retelling stories about my past couple of months or discussing my next moves; they add to my present. They insert positivity and happiness into each waking moment.

Yesterday was my first day back at school and I love my classes already. I'm being instructed by one of the most positive and inspiring instructors, I've ever had the pleasure of being taught by. I'm taking a business launch class which prepares students to graduate and transition into the professional market; it doesn't seem to hold much value among other students, but I really feel like its a valuable class and there is really a lot of good information to pull out of it, assuming one is open and receptive. Just yesterday we participated in some really powerful reflective writing exercises which really got me in touch with a couple of really strong parallels to what it is I most enjoy about life and what I most long to achieve within my photography. I walked away from that class with some clarity and a new perspective; it was truly a liberating experience.

The more I discuss business, the current state of the US economy, post-graduation plans, and human potential I keep alluding to the universality of my chosen profession and the possibility of nurturing what I want to do in far and foreign places. I keep saying and thinking how I could live somewhere else and begin my career in a foreign market; what's to stop me except my own fears or apprehension? I keep saying "I could" and it feels so real, almost right; I really can pick up and leave for a while, anyone could. So now here I am, less than four months away from graduation, with plans which are constantly loosening, changing, and morphing. I'm not exactly sure where it is that I'm going, but I have an overwhelming feeling that there is light on the horizon, that the future is bright, and that I can achieve anything that I truly want to!