If you are friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you’ve likely already grown tired of hearing about the trip to Hawaii that I’m taking next weekend.  If you’re not, well, then maybe you’ll actually be interested in this post.  I’m hoping to do sort of a travel blog about the trip while I’m there (including plenty of pictures), so I thought I would start with a post before I go about how this trip came about and what has been planned for it.

Sometime shortly after I started this semester, I started already thinking about spring break.  I’m not sure how much time off I will get from school this year, so I thought maybe it might be a good idea to take advantage of time off while I get it.  I didn’t think Ricky would be interested in going with me, since he pretty much already had his vacation planned out for the year, so I thought I would be going by myself, and among my destinations (all somewhere warmer than here) were San Francisco or San Diego.  I thought at first I would only be planning for a shorter trip of only a few days.  I got to thinking more about it, and decided… hmm… if I’m going as far as California, why not think a little bigger?  Hawaii has always seemed like a fun place, and somewhere I’d like to go someday – why not see how much it costs and go for it?

And the planning began.  The more I researched Hawaii, the more I wanted to go there.  So I decided to go, whether it meant only a few days by myself there, or, as it turned out, a week there with Ricky.  I was able to talk him into using up some of his precious vacation time for a week with me in paradise.  (Wouldn’t you go too??)

We started out deciding to only go to Oahu, and to stay near Waikiki (our hotel is only a 5-minute walk from the beach) and rent a car to explore the rest of the island during our stay.  Since then, however, we’ve ended up splurging and paying for a flight to the “big island” (Hawaii) to see the volcanoes on one day of our trip.  Other plans include a luau on Wednesday night (what better way to spend St. Patrick’s Day?) and a trip to Ocean’s 808 on Friday night.

I simply could not be more excited.  Hawaii has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.  I wrote a report about it for school in 5th grade, which my mom found the other day.  My family never traveled much or went on too many vacations, so to me, getting to explore as many places as I have the opportunity to now as an adult is simply a dream come true, something I never imagined I would be able to do.

Another fun part of the trip that we are planning to do is visit some LOST filming locations.  Most of the TV show LOST is filmed on Oahu, and we plan on hunting down some of the locations they have filmed and seeing some of these places that we have only previous seen on screen.  Yes, I realize we are dorks.  But if you are a true LOST fan, is there really anything much cooler than getting your picture taken in Dharmaville?  (You can actually see “Dharmaville”, or the Others camp, on Google Maps Street View here.  It’s a YMCA camp on Honolulu, Camp Erdman.)

So we are steadily counting down the days (as of today, only 6 left!) until we hop on that plane and take our three-leg, sixteen-hour journey to paradise.  Can I make it through this week without exploding with anticipation?  We’ll see… but on Saturday morning, paradise here I come!

Every girl should have a best friend.  Someone they’ve known for years, some other girl that they can say has been with them through thick and through thin, through multiple boyfriends, through those tough times of life that honestly, no guy can really completely understand.  For me, that’s my friend Seren.

Seren and I met in 1989.  I can’t remember the exact month we met, so she was either 8 or 9, and I was either 9 or 10.  I do remember that if you talk to the right person, you may be able to find a VHS tape of us in a Christmas play at church that same year.  (Good luck finding one of the lucky people that owns a copy of said tape.)  I can honestly say that we’ve pretty much been best friends ever since.

As kids and sometimes teenagers, Seren and I had this habit of buying something after the other one did.  Purses, cell phones, shoes, you name it.  I’m not sure whether we happen to just have the same taste or we just wanted to compete with each other.  Maybe a little bit of both, honestly.  I honestly can’t even really explain it, but somehow we have just been there throughout the whole of each other’s lives, ever since that day in 1989.  We grew up hanging out at each other’s houses on Sunday afternoons (between church services) and having sleepovers.  We dealt with each other’s crushes and boyfriends.  And we totally fought like sisters when we were teenagers.

Then came college.  Somehow we managed to stay in touch even after graduating high school.  Seren started attending IUPUI in spring of 2001, and I started in the fall (if I remember correctly).  Because she switched majors and I stuck it out with the one I started with, we found ourselves graduating the same semester, from the same school.  One of the coolest things ever was to walk out to “Pomp and Circumstance” with my best friend of (at the time) 17 years.

Seren has seen more of my life than pretty much any of my current friends.  She has known me and seen me grow for the last 20+ years of my life.  She chose me as the maid of honor in her wedding, and should I get married, she will no doubt be in mine.  I can’t even describe what we’ve seen each other through.  Friends, relationships, boyfriends, love, hate, hurt, pain, joy… we’ve pretty much seen it all.  And although we pretty much live on opposite sides of town now and don’t see each other in person too often – we still manage to stay very much in touch and able to share each other’s lives.  In fact, we’re both working on getting our MBAs right now and are currently sharing in the pain of having little free time due to the burden of both a full-time job along with school.

If you can’t say that you’ve had a BFF (Best Friend Forever, for the uninformed) at least sometime in your life, that’s too bad.  I love mine and don’t know what I’d do without her.  I’m glad she’s been there for me through thick and thin for all these years.  Love you, bestie!

Probably not the best way to start off a blog post, but this post will probably bother some people.  I know at the very least probably a lot of you will disagree with it.  It has already gotten me into a couple of disagreements just for mentioning it to a couple of people, so I have that to go off of.

Most, if not all, of my readers here likely live in (or have lived in) Indiana, I’m guessing.  And by default that probably makes quite a few of you Colts fans.  Now, while I wouldn’t necessarily define myself as a “Colts fan”, I’m all for them winning the Super Bowl.  I know barely anything about football, have no interest in it really, and haven’t even watched a game this season.  Sorry, but it’s the truth.  Doesn’t mean I don’t want them to win (as I said, I do), doesn’t mean I haven’t accumulated a few Colts shirts over the years, doesn’t mean I won’t be watching the Super Bowl and rooting for them.  But for the most part, I really have no major interest – it’s just something generic to connect with friends on, honestly.  I’ll clearly admit that.  In that sense, yeah – I’m a “bandwagon” fan.  My only interest is in the fact that everyone else around here cares, and it gives me something in common with them if I care at least a little bit too.  Is it wrong or unauthentic?  I don’t know, you decide – but I’m being pretty clear about what I think here, so I’m not sure it’s fair to call me unauthentic.

Now, while outside of the fact that it gives me a chance to connect with friends and have some fun cheering on a team they care about, Sunday is not that big of a day for me.  But this past Tuesday was.  It was the season premiere of the final season of LOST.  And I am a pretty big LOST fan.  I’ve been watching it since season 2, when a co-worker recommended it and I had a weekend to catch up on season 1.  I love this show.  Yes, it has its faults.  Yes, in some ways I can see how people think it went downhill by season 2 and all sorts of crazy things started getting introduced.  But it’s full of mystery, which I love.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be a detective.  And my love for logic and figuring things out is a big part of how I became a programmer.  So to me… watching this show and trying to figure out what’s going on – well, it just floats my boat.  Yeah, I’m “sucked in” – because I want to be.  It just does it for me.  Not all shows have.  I’ve tried to watch and catch up on both Heroes and Smallville, and I just can’t quite muster up the enthusiasm that I have for LOST.  It’s just an all-around interesting show.  And I have a feeling that most of my friends that are just as avid fans as I am feel very similarly.

So Tuesday was the season premiere of the final season.  LOST fans all over the country (or world, even?) spread their excitement and shared it with other fans via social media, particularly Twitter.  LOST was a trending topic on Tuesday, meaning it was one of the most talked about items on the social media site.  And, as almost anything, it got some haters as well.  People calling it madness, saying they would be glad it was over (presumably because they were sick of hearing about it), saying they’d never watched it and never planned on it, etc., etc.  See… to me, that’s kind of how I feel about the Colts.  Not that I dislike the team, not that I want them to lose, but honestly – yeah, I’m pretty sick of hearing about them.  During a Colts game, I cannot log on to any social media site and not see 90% of the content be about the team.  And the rest of the time, well even on an off day, I see at least one tweet or status update about them.  And I never really complain much about it (up til now, if you see it that way).  I get it – people are really into something.  And that’s ok.

Here’s my thing.  Pretty much all the people I saw complaining about all of the talk about LOST – are huge Colts fans that talk about the Colts quite a bit.  Isn’t this kind of hypocritical?  I mean, you can be a fan of something, but if I am, you make fun of it?  I saw tweets today wondering how people could live here and not be Colts fans.  Is that really that hard of a question to answer?  People like different things.  Is it not understandable that I really don’t care too much about football?  And it’s fine if you do, if you love the Colts.  But then what’s so bad about me loving LOST?  Why do you have to complain if it’s a trending topic for one day?  Is that really too much to deal with?  I see your tweets about the Colts all the time, and I don’t really complain much or let it get to me.  You’re entitled to be a fan of whatever you want.  I won’t try to stop you.

And you might say “well, it’s different”.  But here’s why I think it’s not.  Aren’t LOST and Colts games both there for entertainment?  Both consist of things happening… yeah, LOST is scripted, but it’s a story, even it’s planned out ahead of time, just the way the game is basically a story of what happened, only in real-time.  Both contribute to the economy by keeping people employed.  To me – it’s not that different.  Here are some of the arguments I’ve gotten otherwise:

- Colts football promotes hometown pride.

Does it really?  What do you define as hometown pride?  To me, it’s pride in where you came from, because you care about your roots and admire the place you came from.  What do the Colts really have to do with Indianapolis other than the fact that the name of the city is on their shirts?  The team originated in Baltimore, and I’m pretty sure that even in my limited knowledge of them, it’s safe to say that a lot of the players are not from here.  Is that really hometown pride?

- Playing sports promotes self-esteem and learning life lessons, but acting doesn’t.

I would beg to differ on this one.  Yes, Hollywood has its problems, but I’m pretty sure that people that get into acting make quite an impact on their self-esteem and learn plenty of life lessons as well, just like a lot of other careers.

- LOST started out with a good premise, but turned into just a way to make money.

I had a long conversation about this one.  First of all – I get it.  What happened with LOST was that no end date was set, so while the writers knew there was an end to the story… they didn’t know when they were supposed to end it, so plenty of things got thrown in there that probably really weren’t necessary, and yeah – caused some people to stop watching.  Heh – this is where I relate bandwagon LOST fans to bandwagon Colts fans.  I’ve been watching LOST for a while, and I like the story.  To me – it’s a good idea, and even though they might have gotten out of hand in the middle (when there was no end in sight), I will still watch until the end, because I am a true fan of the show and believe it will all play out well.  Isn’t this kind of like bandwagon Colts fans?  You know, those out there that really only care when the team is winning all the time?  If the Colts had started losing a lot over the last few seasons, I’m pretty sure they would’ve lost a lot of their audience as well.

Another point I would add to this one is that in both situations, there are people that are only out to make as much money as possible.  And there are also people that are out to put out the most quality product that they can, whether that be an episode that fans enjoyed or a game that was won.

I’ve made a lot of points here just to prove my parallel, but my main point is this: people have different interests, and different things they are a fan of.  A lot of them are just meaningless entertainment and don’t matter in the long run.  If you are a fan of one of these things, that’s great.  But don’t go on and on about how great “your” thing is and then bash what other people like just because they get excited about it for a day.  They let you have your fun – return the favor and let them have theirs.

Go Colts and yay LOST!

Did you think I forgot about this series?  Or about my blog in general, for that matter?  Sometimes there are things that I would like to blog about but the actual act of sitting down and writing out my thoughts in a coherent manner just feels too overwhelming.  Or, maybe I’m just lazy.  Anyway, here’s my next hero (and they are in no particular order, FYI).

Ricky (aka rickyleepotts) is my boyfriend, most of you are probably aware of that.  Some of you may not know him.  Some of you may not care for him.  But yeah, he is definitely a hero in my world, and here’s why.

Ricky came into my life at an interesting time.  I had just started a new job, and was going through some things in different relationships that left me open to new ones, and wanting to ring in the beginning of 2009 somewhere new and different.  Ricky and I met between Christmas and New Year’s, and he was open to plans for New Year’s as well.  We ended up ringing in the New Year together (which is an interesting and crazy story in and of itself), and have been dating ever since.

Ricky’s not quite like anyone I’ve ever met before.  I don’t always see eye to eye with him on everything, but one thing that I think is great about him is exactly how real he is.  He’s probably one of the most real people that I know.  And what I mean by that is… well, I can think of relationships I’ve had where I spent a lot of time wondering what the other person was thinking, because I really had no idea.  Some people are just not great at conveying much about themselves sometimes.  Ricky is the complete opposite of that.  I never have to guess what he’s thinking – he will be the first to let me know.  I think more of us need to be like that, and I certainly wish I was sometimes.  It’s refreshing to know someone that is honest about how they feel and what they are thinking.  There’s a degree of authenticity there that’s hard to find.  Some people that know him might think Ricky’s too opinionated, but my thought is that everyone has an opinion… how many of us are just too afraid to share it?

Another thing I love about Ricky is how passionate he is.  When he gets an idea in his head that he is interested in, he really goes after it.  I see people sit around and think of things they want to do for years, yet never end up doing them.  They don’t make the phone call or take the steps or whatever to accomplish what they really want.  That’s not Ricky at all.  Once he figures out what he wants (just don’t put a restaurant menu in front of him, or that may not happen), he goes after it.  He takes the steps to make it happen, and is usually successful.  I’ve gotten some nice perks (get your mind out of the gutter!) over the last year because he just knows how to make things happen.

Ok, I know you’ve been waiting for it… here’s where I get sorta gushy.  Probably the thing I like most about Ricky is how he knows how to deal with me.  Nobody’s perfect, everybody has their bad days… and on the days I’m sad, even though he doesn’t understand, he lets me know he loves me.  On the days I’m mad, if it’s at him, he tries to figure out what he’s done wrong and how to help.  I’m not perfect, but I’m very hard on myself, and thus sometimes hard on those closest to me, so you can bet he has to deal with a lot of that.  And he handles it probably about as well as anyone could.  I can’t imagine feeling much more helpless than dealing with someone who has just lost an immediate family member.  And he’s been there for me through all of that.

To my sweetie… thank you for loving me and for all the things I learn from and admire in you every day. <3

So being the time of year it is, I have noticed more and more people posting on Twitter or Facebook or their blogs what they are thankful for. While there are definitely things/people/etc that I am very thankful for, I think I’m also going to use this opportunity to just be totally honest about what things have been like for me lately. I’ve hinted at it to people, and even expressed it to some, but just for my own form of therapy, I thought I would explain it a bit.

Everyone knows that my dad passed away in March of this year, and if you read my blog or keep up with me regularly, you know a lot of the other things that have happened in my life this year. Shortly before my dad passed away, I had decided to go back to grad school at the IU Kelley School of Business to get my MBA. Following that decision came a long process that included studying for the GMAT, getting letters of recommendation, writing an essay, and taking prerequisite classes, among other things. I continued this process after my dad died because, well, it was a decision I made and something that I wanted for myself, so there was really no question about following through with it.

So I submitted everything, took the GMAT and got a good score, took my prereq, and got into the program. School started in August, and I have been on the journey since then. It has honestly been an up and down road the last few months. First of all, grad school is hard. Maybe not for everyone, but for me it is pretty hard at times. If the work isn’t hard, keeping up with all of the work is. I have struggled at times to easily understand the topics we have studied so far. I have had no real business training other than on the job from being in a professional IT (information technology) environment. Things like accounting (other than the short course I had in high school) and economics (other than what I remember from college stats classes) are pretty foreign to me. And a lot of the time, well, I’ve felt pretty dumb. And some days, this feeling carries over into work too, when I’m facing some new task that involves code that I’m unfamiliar with or functionality that I don’t know how to tackle.  This all leads to a lot of feelings of not being good enough, whether it is with work, school, relationships, or other areas of my life.

Now – combine those feelings with the fact that along with the death of my dad and the stress of work and school, I tend to be a stress eater. Sweets are my drug of choice a lot of times when it comes to looking for a pick-me-up. This has led to gaining a few extra pounds that I really don’t want. So of course that doesn’t help with those self-worth issues any.

Only a few close friends really know how much of a struggle this has been for me. And while advice is great, I honestly already know most of the advice. I know my self-worth, I really do. I know that I’m pretty, that I’m smart, that I will get through school and get my MBA, and that I will even lose those pounds if I really want to. But right now – it’s very hard to get that from my head to my heart. Struggling to feel something emotionally where you just don’t can be a very crippling thing, and a very difficult thing to understand, especially from the viewpoint of those that love and care about the person struggling with this issue. And every little small thing that somehow feeds (or even seems to feed) the lie can feel like a complete emotional attack.

So, here’s my admission. These self-worth issues combined with grief have made close, trusted friends suggest that seeking counseling might not be a bad idea, so I’ve decided to check it out via CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) at IUPUI. It’s a minimal fee service that IUPUI offers their students. And I have to admit that having someone to talk to about some of these things, a third party, can’t hurt.

So what does all of this have to do with Thanksgiving and being thankful? Well, as I’ve basically said many times now, it’s been a rough year. I don’t like admitting that, and I don’t like admitting that I need help. But I’m not sure what my year might have looked like without support from friends, for which I’m so grateful. Thank you, Ricky, gRegor, Seren, and Maurice, for being among the ones who know me best and still love me without fail. And thank you to that special volunteer at Outreach who let me know that I’m not alone, that I’m normal, and that grief can take years to overcome. I’m blessed to have so many great people in my life.

I’m also thankful that there have been a lot of wonderful things in my life this year as well. I’ve been able to achieve some pretty lofty goals and that fact makes me know that I can do anything I set my mind to. In addition to getting into grad school and working towards my MBA, I’ve also managed to travel a lot this year and visit some new places (including Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua) as well as getting the next car I wanted, a 2005 Mini Cooper convertible.  Even though sometimes I can’t really feel it, I know I have accomplished a lot in the midst of a hard year.

I know I’m facing some difficult holidays coming up, but there are things to celebrate this year as well.  And I’ve realized that it’s okay to accept how I feel and to acknowledge that I’m not always capable of living up to expectations, especially my own.  But what I have done and what I am is still perfectly as it should be, even if there’s room for improvement (and there always is).  And there will always be those out there to love me and remind me of that, if I choose to let them.