With my ever-growing list of things to do, I don't exactly have time to fully explain myself. 

Basically, this first semester has been a spicy heaven/hell, with glorious moments that have, unfortunately, been completely drowned in the bad.

I want to emphasize a certain aspect of my bad semester, and that's death, and death compared to a bigger picture of happiness.

Just to give you a little insight, a few weeks ago I got a late night call from my mother saying that my great grandmother was dying. It was very important to me to be there to say goodbye, so I began the 10 hour journey home. On the way there, only 4 hours or so away from home, I was in a car-flipping wreck, which jarred me senseless for weeks. The day after my wreck, only hours after seeing my grandmother, she died. 

Two weeks ago, during Thanksgiving Break and about three or four weeks after my grandmother's death, I was in the hospital getting (what we now know as benign) breast tumor removed.

For a while I was euphoric, although in a melancholy way, because I had faced some forms of death in a very small period of time but survived. My daily problems slid off my back, and I felt released from every care, and every worry I could think of.

Today, after hearing his story "Drowning on Sullivan Street", I discovered I experienced something very similar to what Ed experienced.

But today, two weeks later, with the beginning of finals and sleeplessness, multiplied by the financial debris from my wreck, and countless other microscopic yet magnified problems, I'm losing my positive attitude.

I thought I had a new philosophy. 

And now I'm wondering what it will really take to make me realize that I can survive.

And that's a scary thought.

I'm not looking for your pity. I just want to record this transition in my life. I think it may prove to be an important one.