Wrap it up

The semester is over, the year is almost up and I'm just realizing that this blog is almost one year old! Well... one year from when I remembered that I had a blog. :)

I have been less active this semester and I'm really really going to try harder next year to do more than one post per month.  I'm not sure if it's that I'm just used to the shenanigans of students so I don't feel the need to vent about it as much, or if I'm getting apathetic, or even if it's just that I'm more patient.

Truth be told, the semester kind of flew by for me.  I am regretful that I feel like I didn't connect with this semester's class as well as in the past and that has kind of bugged me. I'm still trying to pinpoint why it worked out that way and why it bugs me so much.

I've also been very aware of how quickly people are coming into and going from my life, especially students.  Again, this is the nature of the job and working in an academic environment, but unlike friends from childhood, high school, college or post-college life, it will be difficult to keep up with most of them.  We're not Facebook friends, we don't follow each other on Twitter, and most of them will move on and not look back.

I am insanely curious to know how they're all going to end up.  I know that when I was a senior in college, I never could have predicted my life would have gone the way that it has...

I may not have known where I was going to live, but I knew where I didn't want it to be (the north or a big city, obviously)

...and I was SO SURE of what I wanted out of life,

...and who I wanted to be with,

...and of course NONE of that really worked out the way that I thought.

Loss and love

Well, it's already the end of the semester and I can't believe that I've been so sparse with my blogging. I will try harder next semester! And it's not a crazy story about student apathy that's driving me to blog this time...it's unfortunately another untimely goodbye to an old friend.

Just a few hours ago, I got back from my up-and-back drive to Richmond to bid farewell to Marlo.  She is someone that could most accurately be described as a family friend, but she was so much more.

A few blog posts have addressed my childhood and being raised in the filipino community in Richmond in the 70's and 80's, including this one as a tribute to my friend and "sister" A.  That post also gives you a small taste of what it was like to grow up with this "family."

It can be hard, even for ProMo, to understand the ties that I have with my Richmond filipino family, especially since I don't go home often.  In fact since my parents moved away in 2003, I've only been back a handful of times at best.  And since I graduated from high school in the early 90's, there are a bunch of families who have moved in, kids who have grown up, and bonds that appear stronger...and very well may be.   But all it takes for me is to go back to the church I grew up in and see all my "aunties" to feel like that little awkward kid with the coke bottle glasses surrounded by love, laughter and lots and lots of food.