Things are slow in my life right now. I’m finishing school, working part time, playing volleyball, and that’s really it. I’m much older than the majority of people I meet at school, so there isn’t much chance to socialize there. Most of them are either living in dorms or partying in campus apartments. Not that I don’t have friends at school –I actually have quite a few really good friends there– I’m just in a different place than them (although, not, because we’re all in the same program at school!) Anyways, it’s just different. I’m all for going out and having a good time, but since my closest friends in town are married and/or have kids (or dogs,) those outings are few and far between. But at least I save money!

Volleyball has been good but again, most of those guys live together or have played together for years. It’s hard to break into that group. But I’m trying to concentrate on just improving my game and having a great time. We’re headed to Michigan State University this weekend for a 2-day tournament, our biggest of the year so far.

So yeah, things get a little lonely sometimes. Which is fine usually, because I’m totally cool on my own. I like peace and quiet and downtime. But sometimes it gets to be too much and I get that longing to be social.

I’ve waited a while to comment on this, but things with Shannon and I are good. We’ve emailed a few times in the past weeks and it looks like we’ll be able to be friends after all is said and done. The breakup was very hard on her, harder than on me for reasons I can’t really explain (or don’t wish to get into on the internet.) She took the time she needed to sort things out and she’s in a better place now. I’ll always respect the time I spent with Shannon, and I’ll always be grateful for what she contributed to my life. Like I’ve said before, I can’t say enough about how great of a person she is and I hope for nothing but the best for her in the future.

But life moves on, and here I am in the newest phase of my life. Although I find myself wishing it was December already and the end of the semester, I keep trying to enjoy the here and now, because you never know what may happen. I’m not actively pursuing any kind of relationship at the moment, but I’m not ruling anything out either. What I am trying to do is to respect myself and whoever I might meet because of the fact that I just got out of a 3-year relationship. I have no intention to date just to date. And I want to make sure I’m not rebounding or trying to fill a spot in my life that Shannon once occupied. With that said, the past few months have made it clear that I am and have been ready to move on. I think that I was earlier before the breakup but I just didn’t know it or didn’t want to admit it. And I think that is why it wasn’t hard for me afterward. It’s difficult to explain and even to think about, but I know that now I’m working with a clean slate. There has been enough time to analyze and put that period of my life into perspective. I’m glad that it happened, but I am also glad that I am able to move on. Move on cautiously and responsibly, but move on.

So yeah, here we are. Like I said, I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I’m confident that this period in my life is working out. It’s preparing me for what is coming next. I don’t know what that is, but I’m excited for it. 2009 should be a good year. I’ll (finally) be graduating with my bachelors degree. I’ll be job hunting and hopefully will make the first moves of my career. I might move, I might stay. Sometimes the unknown can be more exciting than anything.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Feel free to leave a comment below with any advice or whatever you might have in your head at the moment. I appreciate you taking the time to read about me!

Hello readers. Welcome back to Breathingfire.com I apologize for not updating more. I’ve added a few links and movie reviews lately, but other than that I’ve been busy with work and websites and things other than this.

I saw Pineapple Express on Saturday with Scott and it was pretty good. I gave it a 6 in my movie review but it’s a full six instead of an empty one. I’m trying to review on a tighter scale from now on, as most of my star-ratings were averaging in the 7s and 8s no matter how mediocre the movie was. So from now on I’m basing more of my reviews on an average of 5, and going from there. Exciting, huh?

Yesterday I signed up for and participated in my first fantasy football league. The draft went well, and I think I have a fairly decent yet middle-of-the-road team. But, I have little to no knowledge of football outside of knowing what’s happening on the screen, so we’ll see what happens. But it’s pretty fun so far, and it will make watching and attending games more fun. I’ll be in Detroit with Ed on November 23rd to see the Lions whup on Tampa Bay.

Speaking of sports, I’m preparing to play one myself. I’m going to attempt to keep up with the young lads in my local higher education institution’s men’s Club Volleyball team this year. I’m really excited to learn a lot and get into shape and play as much volleyball as my body will let me. The thing is, practices start at 6am. Did you see what I just typed. That is not a typo. I am still typing without going back and correcting that ghastly time. Three days a week I have to get up at approximately 5am and get ready to go run around and hit a ball. I’m a night person 5 times over as much as I am a morning person, so this is going to hurt. But I want to play, so I’ll do it.

Speaking of sports again, the Olympics have been fun. I’ve watched more this year than ever and enjoyed many of the sports that have been on, including (but not limited to) beach and indoor volleyball, basketball, swimming, gymnastics (yeah I said it,) badminton, water polo, sprinting, tennis and even freaking handball. And if you think handball is weird, look up Netball sometime.

You just can’t say enough about Michael Phelps. It was pretty cool to witness one of the greatest performances in athletic history. Plus at least 2 or 3 of the races were insanely close so it made for some good TV watchin’.

Well, I guess that’s all for now. It’s sad to see summer winding down, but now comes Fall in all of its awesomeness. Cooler weather, back to school, football games, falling leaves, Halloween and lots more stuff I can’t think of. Haha! Wherever and whoever you are, make sure you take the time to look around you and be thankful for what you have. I’m doing it now and I feel so lucky. Things are definitely not perfect, but that gives me something to do. Thanks for reading.

Many people know that I’m a big Detroit Pistons fan. Shannon asked me what the one thing I wanted to do on my birthday was, and I said go to a Pistons game. I’m not really sure why I like them so much, or why I like following the NBA so much. It’s not really a sport that a person like me (or people in general, I guess) can relate to. A lot of rich guys play a game where most of the time it seems like money comes before the love of the sport. But I like the match-ups, I like the stars, and I like the coverage. I like how it had that edge to it, and I love watching big plays happen.

Right now the Detroit Pistons are playing the Philadelphia 76ers in round 1 of the NBA Playoffs. In game 3 and the first half of game 4, they were looking pretty bad. They were giving up the ball a lot on mistakes, taking bad shots, and losing their cool. So at halftime the coach said to them “Are you having fun? Because it looks like you’re not having fun.” That and a little speech by Antonio McDyess (fresh off a broken nose) turned things around and now, a game and a half later as the Pistons are on the cusp of winning the series, they’re having fun. They decided to not worry so much about winning and worry more about whether they are enjoying their work.

I found this to be in common with the sand volleyball team I played on last year. It was me and a bunch of my buddies. We thought it would be fun to get together every week and play some volleyball. We were all pretty capable players, and we all liked playing. But a lot of the times, we sucked. Bad. We made mistakes, we got in each other’s way, and tempers flared. A few times we left after the games without saying much at all to each other. We’re all pretty competitive, and things weren’t going the way we’d like.

But I think the thing that got us the most is that we didn’t have fun with it. We worried so much about winning, about getting every point we could and beating each team that we forgot to just have fun playing ball. I’m definitely one of the biggest culprits, because I want to win so badly. I wanted to prove to my friends and the people around me that I could be a winner, and that I could be good at volleyball. And it’s tough, man. You want to have fun, and maybe things start out that way. But there’s always a score, and that feeling of embarrassment when the ball hits the ground in front of you and you were supposed to hit it. So fun gets thrown oout the window as you get a little more serious about things.

I don’t know, maybe I’m not good enough to have fun and do well at the same time. But I’ve done it before, somehow. And I know it’s much easier, and a much better time, to just have fun. So I’ll try to remember that in the future.