Finishing another chapter...

The latest chapter in my young life is coming to a close. I have spent the summer working as an intern at Bodie State Historic Park in California, about an hour and a half + from Yosemite National Park. It's been a great summer, and I've learned a lot. I have decided that this really is the sort of thing I want to do after college. What exactly I will do with it or where I will take it is still rather up in the air, but I at least have this certainty that I was waiting for for what seemed like so long. I love being outside all the time, everyday. It's a grand feeling, and a good one. I feel like I'm more alive, more fit, more at peace with myself out here than I am crammed into the city. I have learned the importance of communication, and I've been challenged on several assumptions, by my boss especially. Out of such challenges have come thoughts that I have already considered, but which are rising up within me with a new fervor. I have every intention of deleting my facebook account. I have officially decided, and I'm posting it here, not on Facebook. I'm thinking that I will maintain this blog weekly or bi-weekly so that people who want to stalk me still can, but I refuse to let myself spend a lot of time on it. I'm also sorely desirous of a landline phone. I await the day when I will have my own home, and a landline number, and I can change my phone to a pay-as-you-go that I'll just throw into my bag when I travel or go out somewhere in case of emergency. I am also strongly considering going vegetarian. Not because I don't like meat, but because I don't approve of the meat market. This would not be a very strict decision: I'm thinking I will cook vegetarian for myself, but I will eat meat if others offer it to me (don't want to be rude!), and I will support in particular the eating of hunted-from-the-wild meats or ethically-raised meats. Unless I know where a restaurant gets its meat, I think I will start eating vegetarian at restaurants as well. Since I don't eat out often anyways, that won't be too much of a problem. This is all in the works a bit, but I'm thinking that when I get back to Chicago I won't buy any meat for my freezer and that'll be that. Finally, and most importantly, I am amping myself up for a serious purging: when I get home I'm going to rid myself of stuff. Once and for all. I've got it all planned out, and I'm already telling my parents to get boxes ready for throwing away and goodwilling. My goal is to get rid of as much as possible: everything that I don't need or haven't seen in a year and haven't missed. I'm going to have to work hard, push hard, push through the difficulties that come with such a proposition for myself. I will enlist the aid of my mother and try not to get upset with her when she tells me to get rid of things. And with any luck, I will hardly have anything left but the essentials by the time I'm done. I'm looking forward to this, really - or maybe I'm looking forward to the end result. I can't imagine how it'll feel to see that room clear of junk and to know that all that weight is off my shoulders. It'll be the first time in years. Literally. And how I need it all to be gone. How I need to push through and overcome all this crap that's been weighing me down for all these years. I can hardly wait to get home.