happy cinqo de mayo! a year ago i was in atlanta visiting friends and watching some of them graduate. i was just reading my entry from last year. i’d forgotten that it was pouring rain for graduation last year, and that carter and kent and i walked from west campus to the coliseum in that rain. now that my memory’s been jogged, i remember being wet for the entire ceremony, and recall the power going out for about 15 minutes. crazy.
then of course two years ago, i was the one graduating. i know cinqo de mayo has its own meaning, but i’ll always associate it with leaving tech. last year i wrote the following:
it has been one year since i graduated from college. i know that i’m still in school, but in my mind, my college life ended and the real world began one year ago. i came to stanford to take a five year job which has since had its contract shortened to a mere nine months. i love california though. every morning i wake up trying to find another way that i could stay there forever, every time i drive down the road and see the hills and the sky and the people, i want to freeze time and stay in the moment. the funny thing is that i could stay, if i wanted. i don’t have to move to houston. i don’t have to stay in school either. i could just stay in california. find an apartment. find a job. find friends. find someone to love. i could just stay.
obviously i didn’t stay. sometimes i wish i had.
but i came to houston, and as i realized last night, i’ve done a pretty good job settling into doing things that i really enjoy. my weeks are full of fun activities. tuesdays are for volleyball right now, but soon may be for the league city symphonic winds. thursdays are for softball, though this thursday is for the usa-mexico soccer game at reliant stadium. fridays are for movies and fun, saturday mornings are for coed gilruth soccer (though the spring season has now ended and won’t start again until the heat of the summer begins to fade). sunday afternoons are for baseball games or doing stuff around the apartment, sunday nights are for women’s league soccer.
i’ve joined a women’s soccer team, and last night made it to my first game. this season i’m only a sub, because they did all the planning and practicing when i was still too busy at work, but next season i’ll be full time. i really liked playing on an all-women team. on the coed team i don’t get the ball very much, and am more ineffective because there are a lot of guys that can cruise right past me. but on a women’s team…well, there are fewer women who can flat out beat me in a sprint, and i am less intimidated by trying to take the ball away from another girl. it was fun. lots of fun. i like soccer; i’m so glad i’m playing it again.
well, off to figure out what paul needs from me for his testimony in front of the caib tomorrow. i like doing work that matters. 
