post thanksgiving

inspired to post by my friend tony (well actually he told me to post more), i'll give an update about thanksgiving.

my thanksgiving was pretty good. i didn't miss my family as much as i thought that i might, though i did think of my brother when i was skiing and how much fun it would have been if he was there. but basically this is what a typical day looked like during the week of thanksgiving (and yes, UIUC does give students a week off for thanksgiving):

1) wake up
2) wrestle with nat/play tickle games
3) eat breakfast
4) get ready for skiing
5) ski (@ breckenridge)
6) come home and eat
7) watch sports (mostly football)
8) hang out/work/play games
9) dinner
10) play games/watch movie

so that kept me busy. it wasn't until i called my parents on thanksgiving that i missed them, and after coming back that i missed them too.

it was nice to hang out with my new family. i'm still learning the ropes of hanging out with them. :) you know, what's expected, how much should i help, what comments are appropriate, the tone of the conversation, etc. i guess it's just normal, since i didn't grow up with them. but this is good, it helps me to think more about nat when he's at home with my family, and how i may be able to help him feel more comfortable at home with me. :)

anyways, skiing was great. i noticed that i'm a real scaredy cat. last time i went, i fell on this harder green, so i wanted to tackle it again. unfortunately, that part of copper was closed. so off to breck we went, and i tried to ski a harder green there. man, when i was on the lift to the new area, i got scared, and then when i got on the hill, i lost all confidence. i felt like i didn't know how to ski or turn or control myself, though i had been doing it the last day. so i just ended up side stepping down the hill, and feeling like a wuss for not going down (and getting some flashbacks of last year). so i'm not sure if it's the unfamiliar territory, fear of falling and contorting my body, fear of falling and running into things, or what, but i think that makes it harder for me to actually push myself. i think it says something about me in regards to life, not just skiing. i prefer comfort and safety, so i opt for that then adventure or something where i can get hurt or fail at. interesting. i shall ponder about that more.

alas, 2 weeks more of school left. and the freaking out has begun. my thesis research is not very exciting for me (since it's not exactly what i wanted to do, but hey, i'm getting paid to do it anyway, and sometimes you gotta do things you don't like). the more i do it, the more i think "hey, i don't understand what network security guys do, and my experiment is going to have no validity because it's not real". i'm finding (from about a week ago), that i have a really specific look at what network security engineers do, and that it might not be general (in fact, i'm pretty sure) to what they do. this is the real reason that i'm kinda scared, b/c i've got a very narrow population that i have access to, and they do things differently. sigh. i need to discuss this with my boss.

alrighty, it's getting close to bedtime. i hope that this suffices for you (tony) for now.

music in my head: David Crowder Band, No One Like You (real player snippet | windows media snippet)